Heretofore, in a color paper for direct appreciation, a combination of yellow coupler, a magenta coupler and a cyan coupler has ordinarily been used for forming color dye images. In order to improve fastness of color dye images obtained from the above-mentioned couplers, and to store for along time for using them, many efforts have been conducted.
However, they cannot be sufficient on the point for meeting demands of users to avoid color-fading or discoloration of dye images of color photographs and to store images with high quality permanently. Namely, with regard to storage stability in the dark such as in an album, an epoch making improvement represented by "a century print of Konica color" has been made, making it possible to store photographic images for a satisfactory long time. On the contrary, storage stability in daylight where images are exposed to light (light fastness) has not reached a sufficient level so that an improvement is required. Among the above-mentioned yellow dye, magenta dye and cyan dye, the magenta dye is the weakest in light fastness, in particular, and efforts have been made for the improvement.
Especially, in pyrazoloazole type magenta couplers recently developed, color dyes thereof do not have sub-absorption near 430 nm, which is different from 5-pyrazolone type magenta couplers conventionally used, the formed. Accordingly, they are basically advantageous in terms of color reproducibility. However, it is known that magenta dyes obtained from pyrazoloazole type magenta couplers are inferior to those obtained from 5-pyrazolone type magenta couplers in terms of light fastness. In this connection, many technologies for improvement have been proposed. For example, there are given technologies to use phenol and phenyl ether type compounds disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication Omen to Public Inspection (hereinafter referred to as Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication) Nos. 159644/1981, 125732/1984, 145552/1986, 262159/1985, 90155/1986 and 39956/1991, those to use amine compounds disclosed in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication Nos. 73152/1986, 72246/1986, 189539/1986, 189540/1986 and 95439/1988, those to use metal complex salts disclosed in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication Nos. 140941/1986, and those to use 145554/1986, 158329/1986 and 183459/1987, inclusion compounds and heterocycles disclosed in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 100048/1990 are cited.